


Communing With The Dead

by acommontater



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Biblical References, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-07 18:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19475311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acommontater/pseuds/acommontater
Summary: There is always a garden and there is always a tree.(Two moments circa 32 A.D.)





	Communing With The Dead

1\. There Is Always A Garden

Aziraphale walks soundlessly through Gethsemane, not letting the ripe and rotting olives on the ground stain his sandals. Jesus of Nazareth- not yet a condemned man, or a dead man, still just a man- sits on a rock and stares up at the stars. The moon is bright enough to read by tonight.

He doesn’t say anything as Aziraphale sits down next to him. They both know what is coming in the next few hours.

“They could not stay awake.” He says finally, shaking his head ruefully. “I knew they would not, and yet...” He trails off.

“You hoped they would.” Aziraphale finishes. Hoped that if Peter, John, and James had stayed awake then it would not be real, not yet. Jesus nods, then his breath catches and he looks so terribly young. (Thirty-odd years is nothing to an immortal.)

“I don’t want to die.” Jesus whispers. His voice cracks on the last word, and is seem he cannot help the tears that follow.

Aziraphale puts an arm around his shoulders and wraps his wings around them both as a very scared young man sobs into his shoulder. He does not cry, because as heavy as his heart is he knows the Great Plan must be followed. Eventually the tears peter out and Jesus sits up. Aziraphale squeezes his hand.

“Thank you.” Jesus says gently. Aziraphale can hear the soft clatter of soldiers moving through the garden some distance away and glances over. Jesus stands and Aziraphale rises with him. Jesus follows his gaze. “It is time.”

He pats Aziraphale’s hand before releasing it, taking a steady step back towards the three sleeping forms on the ground nearby.

The soldier’s appear, led by an Apostle. The three on the ground startle awake, one of them goes for his sword, but Jesus stills them all. They shackle him and drag him out of the clearing and Aziraphale looks away.

2\. A Tree of Death

“Lovely evening, isn’t it?”

The man doesn’t startle the way most do when Crowley pops into existence next to them. He glances at Crowley then goes back to staring at the coil of rope in his hands.

Crowley frowns before sitting down next to him under the tree.

“Are you here for my soul?” The man asks calmly. His voice is raw, as if he’d spent rather a long time crying and had only recently stopped, more because he had no tears left than having run out of grief.

“Oh no, not my job. I’m in the business of temptations myself.”

“Right.”

They sit silently for a moment, staring out over the field they face at the setting sun.

“Right, what’s got you so upset then?” Crowley finally asks.

The man finally looks surprised.

“I... betrayed a friend. I thought I was doing the right thing, but...” He looks down. “They’re going to kill him tomorrow, because of me.”

“If it makes any difference, if they wanted your friend dead that badly they would have found a way to do it with or without you.” Crowley shrugs, leaning back.

“He did nothing wrong, really. And Jesus was a good friend to me, they all were. And now...”

“Jesus of Nazareth?” Crowley waits for the man to nod. “I met him you know. Tempted him with all the kingdoms of the world, all the power he could have if he wanted it. Turned me down.”

“You were the devil in the desert?” The man finally looks at him properly, flinching when he meets Crowley’s eyes.

Crowley grins, teeth a little sharper than usual.

“And in the Garden and all the placessss in-between.”

“Right.” The man stands abruptly and Crowley joins him. “Then you can help me.”

“What?”

The man points up into the tree.

“Can you make sure that the rope is secured to one of the sturdy branches? I can’t quite reach.”

Crowley stares at him for a long moment. He looks calmly back with reddened eyes.

“Alright.” Crowley says softly.

He secures the rope with a fiendish knot and finds the man looping a different sort of knot at the other end with the confidence of one taught how to use ropes by fishermen.

“Thank you.” He says to Crowley. “Will I.. Will I see you after?”

“No, my job is here on Earth.” Crowley answers, hesitating for a moment. “You don’t have to, you know.”

The man smiles sadly at him.

“I cannot live with myself with this on my soul. They wouldn’t take the money back and I cannot take back what I have done to my friend.” He hoists himself up to a branch a few feet off the ground. He looks past Crowley at the last rays of the setting sun. “Will you pray for me, when... after?”

“I’m a demon.”

“Yes. Will you pray for me?”

“...Yes.”

The man sighs, sets the rope around his own neck, and falls.

Crowley doesn’t flinch, but he does make sure the rope is sure enough to snap the man’s neck on the drop. He’ll suffer enough in death.

He stares at the body in the dark for a long time. The man is dead and will never know if Crowley didn’t follow through on his promise.

“Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra...” The words burn on his tongue as he recites them- holy words of grief and joy and reflection.

He finishes the prayer and spits out the blood in his mouth in the field.

He leaves the body of Judas Iscariot for the crows.


End file.
